Accessibility and the choice of network investments in the London Underground

Abstract

Abstract:In 1863, the Metropolitan Railway of what came to be known as the London Underground successfully opened as the world's first subway. Its high ridership spawned interest in additional links. Entrepreneurs secured funding and then proposed new lines to Parliament for approval, though only some were actually approved. While putative rail barons may have conducted some economic analysis, the final decision lay with Parliament, which did not have modern transportation, economic, or geographic analysis tools available. How good were the decisions that Parliament made in approving Underground lines? This paper explores the role accessibility played in the decision to approve or reject proposed early London Tube schemes. It finds that maximizing accessibility to population (highly correlated with revenue and ridership) per expenditure largely explains Parliamentary approvals and rejections.

Accessibility and the evaluation of investments on the Beijing subway

“…By examining the contribution of each individual Subway Line, the cost effectiveness of routes can be ascertained, which may help future planning. is study complements previous research by the author and others on transit networks development and land use change (Block-Schachter and Zhao 2015;King 2011;Levinson 2008;Levinson et al 2015;Xie and Levinson 2009).…”

Oxidative Stress From Exposure to the Underground Space Environment

“…Since the first subway in the world was built in London in 1863 (31), subway systems, as a typical type of urban underground space, have been expanding in depth and scope. Currently, subway systems have reached depths of ∼200 m underground (Pyongyang metro station, North Korea) and a total number of more than 150 worldwide (32,33).…”

Towards a general theory of access

“…We list some of the key observations which are largely explained by access here, with a few of the many references supporting the relationship. Access explains much of the variation in: Commuting Time (Levinson 1998; Vandersmissen et al 2003;Wang 2000), Employment Rates (Ihlanfeldt and Sjoquist 1990;O'Regan and uigley 1999;Shen 1998), Mode Shares (Kockelman 1997;Moniruzzaman and Páez 2012;Owen and Levinson 2015), Real Estate Prices and Density (Iacono and Levinson 2017;Shin et al 2007;Srour et al 2002), Incomes and Productivity (Cervero 2001;Deng 2013;Melo et al 2017), and Investment Decisions (Levinson 2007;Levinson et al 2015).…”